REDI shopping centre to open its doors in September

The REDI shopping and experience centre, implemented by SRV at Kalasatama in Helsinki, will open its doors to customers on Thursday, 20 September 2018. Leasing of the shopping centre’s retail premises has proceeded according to plan and now, exactly six months before the official opening day, over 70 per cent of the 200-plus premises have been leased. In addition, lease negotiations are currently under way on nearly all of the remaining premises.

The REDI shopping centre is expected to attract over 12 million visitors in its first full year of operation. In addition to a comprehensive retail offering, REDI will also feature new and surprising leisure-time options. The shopping centre will provide, for example, opportunities to experience the thrill of flying as well as a 7D virtual theatre where movie action is made real through virtual headsets and motion simulators that stimulate all the senses. In addition, the Baltic countries’ leading cinema chain, Cinamon, will open in REDI its first movie theatre in Finland.

“A change is taking place in Finland’s shopping centre market. Shopping centres are increasingly becoming meeting places where visitors want to have fun and stay longer. People are also seeking experiences and entertainment in them,” says SRV’s Pia Svensk, Director of Retail Concepts, REDI.

REDI’s entertainment world has its own entrance, enabling longer opening hours than the shopping centre – also for those wishing to enjoy the delights of flying or the 7D virtual theatre. The experience of flying will be offered at REDI by the free-fall simulator FÖÖNI, where visitors will be able to fly and move in a stream of air using their own bodies. The project is unique due to its shopping centre location. REDI will also be home to a climbing centre, which will include a 1,000 square metre training area and a 20 metres high climbing wall. Finland has around 50,000 climbing enthusiasts and the REDI climbing centre is expected to attract 100,000 visits per year.

REDI’s 38 restaurants, cafés, bars and take away points have a total of 3,500 customer places. According to Svensk, companies particularly value the shopping centre’s central location, good transport links and large customer streams. Among the innovations of REDI’s restaurant offering is the “fast-casual dining area”: ten restaurants side-by-side, offering dishes to suit all tastes. Each restaurant in the area will have around 100 square metres of hall and kitchen facilities in its disposal. In the restaurant offering, there will be a strong emphasis on street food. REDI’s normal restaurant and entertainment court, open until late in the evening, will operate on a number of floors, linked to each other by elevators and escalators.

Construction of the REDI shopping centre began in 2015. REDI shopping centre is an SRV own-development project, whose investor group includes Ilmarinen, OP Financial Group and LocalTapiola, in addition to SRV. The construction work is advancing on schedule, and the parking facility implemented in connection with the shopping centre is already nearly completed. REDI will have parking spaces for 2,000 cars and 3,000 bicycles. In addition to the shopping centre, the REDI complex will also include a green deck the size of Esplanadi Park in central Helsinki as well as eight residential towers, of which construction work on the first tower, Majakka, is already under way, with the first residents moving in to REDI in spring 2019.

REDI, due to open in 2018 next to Finland’s mostly densely populated area, will have around 60,000 people living in its direct proximity, and there will be over 500,000 people, a third of the residents of Greater Helsinki, in its entire area of influence. REDI is located at the intersection of three large highways, and the metro will stop 500 times a day on the third floor of the shopping centre. A number of bus lines will stop both on the third floor of the shopping centre and at street level. There will be 45,000 jobs within a ten-minute walk of the centre.

REDI, implemented by SRV at Kalasatama, Helsinki, will comprise the inner city’s largest shopping and experience centre as well as eight tower buildings. Below the centre will be a 2,000-space parking facility, usable by both the towers’ residents and the shopping centre’s customers. REDI’s popularity is not just restricted to business premises. Of the apartments in the first residential tower, Majakka, around 90% have been sold. Advance marketing of the second tower building, Loisto, will begin in April 2018 and construction is intended to start during summer 2018. Construction work at REDI, Finland’s largest urban construction project, was launched in spring 2015 and is expected to continue until 2023.

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